


Desert Solitaire

by neko_bb



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allurance if you squint, Desert Keith Week 2018, How Do I Tag, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Sheith if you squint, a tad angsty, desert keith, first fic, for a second it's fine, keith's father - Freeform, neature, post-canon for a second, post-kerberos pre-voltron, sick keith, survivor keith, the rest of the gang shows up at the end, unbeta'd we die like men, voltron lions AND a real lion!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-01 18:00:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15148739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neko_bb/pseuds/neko_bb
Summary: And yet, that had been the way of the desert since he had fled here months before--strange signs that pulled his nerves to breaking, but never quite did. Until now. This was his breaking, it seemed.For Desert Keith week 2018.





	1. Provisions

**Author's Note:**

> Title borrowed gratuitously from Edward Abbey. 
> 
> My first time ever writing/posting a fan fiction after like a decade of lurking. 
> 
> Prompt Day 1: Provisions. 
> 
> "There was more he should have thought through before he got here."

Keith sat back on his heels on the hard planks of the shack, gazing absentmindedly up at the strange wreckage that remained: the plywood balanced over breezeblocks and books, the yellowed sheets on the windows, the sun-bleached stereo system on the bookshelf nearing collapse. The sun bled in ominous amber cascades with the drift of dust motes through the air. There was more he should have thought through before he got here. Keith sighed, sending the motes spinning. His stomach growled, the edge of hunger now sharper than when he’d kicked the bike into gear and roared down-canyon to arrive before nightfall. That was easily hours ago, and while the shack was still miraculously connected to the cistern that used to feed his father’s house before it burned to the ground, it was devoid of food. 

At least he hadn’t been so brainless as to not bring water in case the cistern had run dry, Keith mused, crawling to all fours before heaving himself into a standing position. His back ached from riding and re-digging the cistern for water, and his knees were stiff from kneeling on the floor for so long. He hadn’t meant to, but as soon as he had wrenched the weather-beaten door open and gotten the tap running, he had been entranced, watching evening creep across the floorboards as icy reality wormed its way into his insides.

He had been catching himself like this for weeks after the news—slipping into numb silence, drifting. There were moments when his mind was a wildfire, raging for—for what? The truth? Revenge? A body to bury? The demons tore at him until he found himself acting out, breaking bathroom mirrors, destroying his barracks. The rest of his grief had been manifesting like this—a hazy static that blanked him out until his marks plummeted and he would come to himself in class, unable to recall what day it was. 

He had started the day in such a stupor, but snapped in the simulator, when Iverson aired the new Kerberos training scenario. 

He slapped sand from his jeans and turned in a slow circle, lost. He needed to eat sometime. He could feasibly head back to town, but negotiating the way there and back in the pitch black would be suicide. Not to mention the fact that, with the way he had left Iverson’s eye, the entire Garrison and every sheriff in the tri-county area would be looking for him by now, and town would be the first place anyone checked. 

He could try his hand at trapping like his dad had taught him when he was a kid, but he didn’t have the heart to slit a rabbit’s throat then, and now—he couldn’t even think of it, bringing another creature to its final moments. He couldn’t stop thinking about what Shiro’s were like—did he know what was happening? Was he unaware and free of pain when the end came? Was he even actually dead? And if he wasn’t, what was his fate now? Was it worse than death?

Keith screwed his eyes shut, bit his cheek and dug his nails into his palms. Focus, focus. But no—

_Patience yields focus._

His smiling silhouette, his easy lean against the bike as a sunset too much like this one doused him in gold. Keith let the image build and shatter in his mind’s eye and screamed, loud and short. He seized a book from the shelf and hurled it through a window. The sheet tore free and the glass exploded upon impact. He was instantly filled with regret. He dropped to his hands and knees, chest heaving, the hot clench in his throat overwhelming him. Shiro was gone and he had no one and nothing and he was going to starve out here from his own thoughtless stupidity and now he was destroying the last refuge he had. 

In the twilit plane of the desert buzzing to life in the cooling air, he let go, safe in the knowledge that no one could hear him.

When the grief and rage had blown itself out, he felt lighter than he had in weeks. He took one long inhale, then gusted it through his lips. OK. He could do this. He could figure this out. He would sleep and tackle the problem in the light of a new day. 

That night as Keith tossed and turned on the musty couch with his riding jacket under his head and a scratchy blanket tangled around his legs, he dreamed of his father cleaning rabbits. He struggled against the memory, cringing at the blood on his father’s hands, but then—

Another memory bubbled forth: the rusty brown of a steel trapdoor, its earthy depths—a cache box buried just beyond the property line with emergency goods and hunting supplies. Keith startled awake and scrambled to his feet, panting harshly. The barest hint of dawn was caught in the ragged edge of the broken window. He grabbed a flashlight from the bike and took off, not entirely sure where to go. 

The sun was properly over the ridgeline and he was starting to feel a little manic with hunger when he came across a rock formation he was almost certain recognized. Circling to its northern side, Keith’s knees weakened and he knelt at the sight of the trapdoor, bolted shut with a padlock that was more rust than steel. He used the flashlight to bash off the lock and, with shaking hands, tugged the door open with a loud screech from the corroded hinges. 

The sun revealed a dark metal well of canned foods, enough to last at least a week or two. Keith let out a choking laugh-sob of relief, then reached in for a can of chicken noodle soup. He pulled the tab and drank, the salty tang almost knocking him out. He laughed again, sinking back to his heels. He still had all his questions. He still had no plan for the future. But he wouldn’t be forced back to the harsh reality of the front country just yet. He had bought himself some time.


	2. Wildlife

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 2: Wildlife
> 
> "He had come to know the desert as a canvas of animal tracks by now."

He had come to know the desert as a canvas of animal tracks by now. Despite the starkness of his solitude and the sandstone cliffs around him, he now knew this land, so dead at first glance, was seething with life. His daily chores of burying his garbage deep in the sand and collecting deadfall for the woodstove revealed the chronicles of the night before: hordes of mice and snakes, a long line of fox prints trailing the sporadic bursts of jackrabbit bounds in the dunes. He had seen one once, moments before the sand boiled into a dust storm: an animal much larger than he could have imagined and impossibly fast, its dashing hallop a gash of white on the red earth, bursts of sand rising under its feet. 

But this morning had given him the greatest find, pressed into the deep and sucking mud of a slot canyon into which he had wandered: mountain lion tracks, wet and fresh as the animal had descended the silty slope and trailed into the trickle of water caught in the heart of the canyon. 

His father had warned him as a small child to never stray alone into the wilderness, as he was easy prey for mountain lions. Even at the Garrison, locals would occasionally swap stories of inept hikers going solo into the wilderness and falling victim to an attack. But the creatures fascinated him. Large, silent cats perfectly honed for their homes of dark valleys and brutal mesas; top predators still prowling the edges of town, lone phantoms outliving humanity’s best efforts to wipe them out. Where others feared encountering a lion, Keith longed for it. He had heard their chirrups and screams some nights, alone in the shack, and all the hair on his neck had risen—from fear or thrill, he couldn’t tell. 

That feeling was returning now as he ducked under a low juniper branch. He was on low ground, following lion tracks down a slot canyon, in a wilderness where he was completely alone, where he was learning how to haunt, how to survive. 

A branch snapped at the rim of the canyon over his head. His head whipped up as he gazed wildly around, heart pounding. The hiss and buzz of the desert, always a constant these days, sharpened into something more sinister as he stood, frozen, ankle deep in gritty mud. He kept scanning the ridge for movement—a golden eye, a flicking tail—

In a pale wash 20 feet from his position, the mountain lion sauntered into view. Strangely, it was not as big as Keith pictured, but the desert was still teaching him. It stopped and turned, obviously regarding him. He felt as though his lungs had evaporated; yet something still pulsed in his temples as he waited. The lion twitched its tail and lifted its chin. Keith’s mind frantically grasped at what he remembered about mountain lion encounters—act as large as possible, make loud noise, be ready to fight for your life, don’t turn your back on it, don’t run, don’t run, don’t run—

The lion let out a small huff. It remained focused on Keith, head almost cocked, and a new sensation Keith couldn’t name rose from the pit of his stomach and up his scalp. 

“Hey,” he called. His own voice scared himself, and his heart felt like it would burst. 

The lion blinked, slowly. It swung its head away and continued up the wash, leaving buckling mounds of sand in its wake. As it rose over the lip of the canyon and disappeared, Keith’s lungs returned to his body. 

“Oh,” he gasped. 

His feet found their way back to the shack, and that night, as the stove cast flickering shadows through the windows of the shack and onto the red sand, Keith swore he saw a pair of eyes just at the edge of the light and was glad he had boarded up the broken window. 

Each morning after, as he gathered wood, he would discover lion tracks circling the perimeter of the shack, just beyond the reach of the firelight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posted moments after chapter 1 because it's technically day 2 already.  
> Also thIS IS PARTIALLY BASED ON WHAT HAPPENED TO ME ONCE and it felt appropriate.


	3. Climate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 3: Climate 
> 
> He was familiar with its unpredictable climate. He could handle the sandstorms, the flash floods, the thunder so loud the windows shook. Their violence was terrifying but not unexpected, not difficult to anticipate and prepare for. Instead, it was the heat that was killing him.

Having grown up--for a small portion of his life, at least--in the desert, he was familiar with its unpredictable climate. He could handle the sandstorms, the flash floods, the thunder so loud the windows shook. Their violence was terrifying but not unexpected, not difficult to anticipate and prepare for. Instead, it was the heat that was killing him. 

The nights weren’t so bad, except that once the sun was gone, the temperature plummeted to winter-like levels. That first night he slept in every piece of clothing he had and shivered under a scratchy wool throw, desperate for warmth. Properly motivated, he figured out how to fire the woodstove without generating any conspicuous smoke and slept in relative comfort, and the home smelled sweet with the scent of juniper.

It was the days—hot, stifling and mostly still, with occasional breezes like the hot blast of an oven with its door opened mid-bake. Keith at first hid in the darkest part of the house, feverish and dozing. The sun was cruel in ways Keith had only read about before, boiling his makeshift rain barrels into nothing, dessicating his food into inedible toughness, bleaching his clothes, burning his skin into purpled, blistered sheets, and dehydrating him perpetually. Heat sickness, he found, was real, and deadly. He got so dehydrated he vomited until he forced himself onto the bike and drunkenly pulled into the gas station about 40 miles down the road, looking for some relief. A distraught clerk allowed him free slushies until he could keep them down and could see straight again, then he had fueled up and fled before the clerk could ask any more questions or call for help. 

Thankfully, the pull of the desert offered up the caves with their strange carvings and, more importantly, their relative coolness during the day. He would seek refuge in the dark, sandy hollows during the most unforgiving afternoons, exploring the dim, chill caverns, running his hands over the strange carvings, rubbing them into his notebook to pore over later. 

While it seemed more plausible to him that the heat of the desert was a tangible thing, humming and alert, the weird insistence with which it called to him felt like something more. Even in dreams, he wandered the caves as voices whispered to him, as someone who looked like his father, then Shiro, then his father again, ducked around rocky corners, just out of reach. He would awaken with the animal of his grief heavy in his chest and tinged with something uneasy and desperate. So he would retrace the steps he took in his dreams, the caverns seemingly falling away before him as he walked. In one wild thought, he imagined that his father and Shiro would appear here, just as they did in his sleep.

But they never did. And the heat still got to him. Its monotony, its constant presence. The dry air hissed with questions. _Why are you here? What are you doing? Where are you going?_ It waited with him and for him, burning with the wound somewhere under his diaphragm, the one that had opened the day they told him that his father was dead. The one that had re-opened and widened when he discovered that Shiro was gone.


	4. Scouting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He started to realize that he was retracing his father’s steps in both mind and body, even as he made his own.

Keith’s father had once taught him how to use a compass and map to reverse-orient himself into the landscape, and Keith had relied on this skill as well as the faint ruts that still ghosted the slick-rock to reach the shack. A few four-wheel drive roads also crisscrossed the backcountry that Keith explored and provided easy returns back to home base. But the real trails, the game-paths and pioneer roads, Keith found and mastered thanks to his father. 

He had been poking around the cabinets and drawers of the kitchen and found a thick brown folder tied together with string. Within his father had accordion-ed a long series of taped-together legal paper, onto which he had hand-drawn an entire survey of the land surrounding the shack. Keith had spent hours transferring this rudimentary map onto his road atlas, including the indecipherable x’s and o’s that his father had included in a few arroyos, karsts and slot canyons, which he had checked once he had his bearings.

These maps also included little notes that had saved Keith, like “small seep here—safe to drink” or “old mineshaft—stay away.” Every step he followed along his father’s trails brought back the sound of his voice, the roughness of his hand, the way he smelled after a long day at the station. 

His father also seemed to have been relying on these surveys as a sort of daily log, with small asides like, “Went too far out today—couldn’t stop thinking about her, if she’s ok.” 

As Keith followed his father’s notes, he realized that his father was synonymous with the desert. Every memory, every moment Keith had of the place carried his father’s touch, even now as he followed his ghost across the trails. 

It was when the desert began to hum a little deeper than before that he also began to stray farther and farther into its topography. He hung the annotated atlas and his father’s overlay on the wall, tying string to the x’s and o’s he’d visited. He then abandoned his father’s work and began to edit the curvature of the old paths, add his own trails across the landscape. He tacked on the photos his father took of the land’s needles and spires, his rubbings of the pictographs on the cave walls. The work almost distracted him from the searing pit in his chest—almost.

He began to keep small logs of the days and tacked them to the wall as well. Dateless, without elaboration, he wrote them as if in correspondence, hoping to ease the hot ache he felt as he curled up on the couch each evening and the night world of the desert moved in. 

_It’s killing me when you’re away—_

He started to realize that he was retracing his father’s steps in both mind and body, even as he made his own. He now wondered just as his father had when his mother left. He now paced as his father had paced, anxious, over the sands, searching for something that had once called to him, that now called to Keith.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!


	5. Rest/Horizon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He realized he was dreaming and sat up to vomit into a tin bucket next to him. He drifted away again and Shiro was there, running a hand through his bangs. He knew it was a dream because he couldn't feel the hand on his face and Shiro was dead, frozen to some moon at the edge of the galaxy, never to return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for being a lazy jerk and combining days 5 and 6, but i really enjoyed writing this and i didn't want to mess it up adding any greater shift to the story.

In retrospect, it seemed ironic that Keith had polished off his father’s battered copy of Raymond Carver when the fever struck, like the universe was sending him instructions for what was to take place—and yet, that had been the way of the desert since he had fled here months before: strange signs that pulled his nerves to breaking, but never quite did. Until now. This was his breaking, it seemed. 

In the book, the narrator fell ill and was instructed by his housekeeper to pay close attention to himself, as illness suggested a turning point, a new way forward. Keith scoffed at the notion, rolled over to sleep, and awoke to a world too bright and close, too hot and cold. 

“Nooooo…” he moaned, bent over the sink running his wrists under the tap. The sink suddenly sputtered, and Keith straightened up, a sense of dread settling in his stomach. The faucet belched again, coughed a rusty splatter into the drain, and halted. He turned the handle back and forth a few times, to no avail. 

“Dammit!” He pounded on the sink and sank to the floor, punching repeatedly on the base. “Dammit dammit dammit!” He stood, lurched onto the porch, and lumbered to the back of the house. Lifting the cover, he saw that the cistern contained only a rusty slick of water. He turned and heaved onto the hard sand. 

He tried to check the pipe that fed water to the pool, but whether it was blocked or the spring had dried up, he couldn't tell. He tried to dig deeper into the pool, fetid, coppery mud coating his boots and jeans, sucking in him. The ground spun and his ears rang and he couldn't focus on getting the water going again. 

He must have returned to the couch, but he didn't recall doing it. He got mud all over the place--in his fevered brain the stuff looked like dried blood on the cushions. He was burning, then freezing. He was awake and his father was handing him an ice chip to suck as his joints ached. He shivered and his body throbbed. He realized he was dreaming and sat up to vomit into a tin bucket next to him. He drifted away again and Shiro was there, running a hand through his bangs. He knew it was a dream because he couldn't feel the hand on his face and Shiro was dead, frozen to some moon at the edge of the galaxy, never to return. 

The Shiro in his dream smiled. “Hey.”

“You’re dead.” It was all Keith could manage.

The smile faltered for a moment. “I’m not.”

“This is a dream.”

“It is.”

“I’m probably dying.”

Shiro laughed. “Ever the melodramatic.”

Keith felt his throat clench. His chest was too tight. “Come back. Please.”

Shiro’s face grew serious. “That’s why I’m here.” He leaned forward and placed a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Listen very closely. Have you been searching?”

Keith faltered. The world felt unfocused and wobbly again and his head pulsed. “I don’t understand.”

“Yes you do. Haven’t you been looking for something?”

“For you?”

“You know that’s not quite it.”

Keith struggled to sit up, to break the dream. He couldn't bear this—seeing his face, knowing he was gone. “I don’t know, then! I don’t know what I’m doing or why I’m here, just please—” his voice broke, “please...”

Shiro’s face was inches from his own. His eyes bored into Keith’s, but they weren't Shiro’s eyes. It wasn't Shiro. Keith wanted to scream. Not-Shiro shook him. 

“Listen. I know you’re hurting. I know you’re scared. But it’s going to be OK. You have to believe me when I say this—I’m coming back. Tomorrow night. Go back to the Garrison, and I’ll be there. You’ll know what to do.”

Keith felt like he was imploding, like the earth was opening beneath him and he was falling in. Blackness ate at the edges of his vision and he was sinking and Shiro was pulling away. 

“Wait!” Keith screams, “Shiro!”

He fell into black. 

When he awoke, it was pitch-dark. He couldn't see his hand in front of his face. He launched off the couch, panicked, his pants stiff with mud. He felt unsteady but less delirious—the fever must have broken. 

The shack felt tight with something Keith couldn't place. He looked wildly out the window, imagining eyes like those of the lion that had haunted the property for months. 

“Shiro?” he eventually called. He’s almost humiliated by his weakness, but the dream felt so real. As his eyes adjusted to the moon and stars outside, he could see nothing was out of place. The shack was still and silent, and the hum of the desert pulled at him once again. He went to the window and pressed his warm forehead against the glass. A shooting star flared on the horizon. Then another. The hum, impossibly, fell another octave and Keith could feel it in his ribs, vibrating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you liked this~


	6. Free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro can’t totally see what Keith sees on the porch, but can see Keith, the boy of the desert. The boy who haunted these dunes and canyons, slipped down arroyos and slept in karst formations, seeking something he didn’t understand, nursing the dark wounds of something he did. All those months alone with his ghosts, learning more than just to survive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is the last past for me! i had a ton of fun putting this together and i'm not inspired to keep writing. hope you enjoy!

Keith gives the door a hard shove, and the wood squeals free of the jamb. It seems the heat and disuse had swollen the thing in its hinges. 

He’s anxious, Shiro can tell, unsettled by the knot of people waiting on the porch steps of a house that’s practically haunted for him. Lance has his arm slung around Allura’s neck and has somehow found a way to recount the night he, Pidge, Hunk and Keith broke Shiro free of the Garrison and found the blue lion. Hunk and Pidge are showing Coran the device they cobbled together to detect Blue’s fraunhofer waves, supplementing Lance’s slightly biased story. Krolia and Romelle stand side by side, as usual. They’re a little ways off in the lot next door. Krolia seems to be in a sort of private mourning over the blackened foundation where the house once stood—where she fell in love with Keith’s father, where she gave birth to Keith. The wolf is at Keith’s side, his muzzle pressed into his hip. 

Shiro can’t totally see what Keith sees on the porch, but can see Keith, the boy of the desert. The boy who haunted these dunes and canyons, slipped down arroyos and slept in karst formations, seeking something he didn’t understand, nursing the dark wounds of something he did. All those months alone with his ghosts, learning more than just to survive.

He reaches out and touches Keith’s shoulder, who startles slightly, then smiles and pushes the door open. 

The group files inside, and even though the shack is overwhelmed by the amount of people packed in, a sort of hush falls over the group. Despite the more thorough patch job that Keith had put on the broken window before he left, the structure is returning to the elements. Sand covers everything, and mice have ruined the couch, the sheets on the windows, the small rug. Lizards skitter away from them and under the weather-beaten couch. The floor shows signs of the sun’s relentless treatment, splitting with its harsh heat. The bookcase has fallen in, and the stereo appears petrified in the mess left behind. As the group moves around the room, the boards creak and groan as if the shack is alive and pained by the return of people under its eaves. 

Keith had not yet lifted the dark cover off the hoverbike standing in the yard—he didn’t seem to have the heart for it yet. Although it doesn’t seem like they have been gone that long, in the eyes of the desert, they have been gone long enough. 

As the others examine the yellowing map still stuck to the wall, braced by the crusty yarn that remains, Keith drifts into the kitchen, which is in an equal state of disrepair. Shiro watches as he touches the rusty sink basin with a single finger. 

“I’m honestly shocked it looks as good as it does,” he admits with a breathy laugh. “But…it probably can’t be saved.” 

He turns to Shiro. The light in the kitchen is dim, shadowy from the ruined sheets on the windows. His eyes shine in the gloom. “Maybe it was stupid to come here,” he almost whispers. 

Shiro steps into Keith’s space and touches his hand. “I think it’s great to be here again.”

Keith looks up at him, eyes gleaming. He says nothing. 

“Somehow,” Shiro starts slowly, picking his way through the welling in his chest, “the blue lion landed here—on unassuming earth, sure—but of all places, _here._ ”

“And somehow,” Shiro can feel the others in the living room, listening. “An ally of the blue lion, infiltrating an enemy organization, just happened to be in the right place at the right time, in this vast universe, to find the blue lion. And not only did she manage to protect it,” Shiro tightens his grip on Keith’s hand, “she also found love, and made a home here.” Keith’s head falls onto Shiro’s shoulder, hiding his face. Shiro continues, “she had a family—a boy who would not only go on to protect the blue lion, like his mother did, but save the entire universe. Who would start everything…here. In the most improbable place.”

A boy who had been torn away from this place and somehow came back, Shiro thought. A boy who took a harsh life, a harsh land, and coaxed water out of the stones, made the earth tell its secrets. A boy who never gave up, not on himself, and not on Shiro, even as they had been torn away, over and over. 

The whole shack is still, save the soft hiss of sand drifting across the porch. Keith lifts his head from Shiro’s shoulder. His eyes are bright and he smiles the smallest, sweetest smile. He pulls on Shiro’s hand and leads him out onto the porch. The group follows. 

“C’mon,” he says, walking backwards into the drifting sands as he faces them, a happy and wild look in his eyes as the winds pull his hair across his face, “I’ll show you how I found it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Man, was taking on a challenge week the best way to get into posting fan fiction? Anyways, hope you enjoyed.


End file.
